Enigmatic
by Verboten Byacolate
Summary: She doesn't need to giggle, or flirt, or paint any blush across her honest cheeks. Italy/fem!Germany


Most of the time, when Italy thinks about someone at length, he starts with the bad and melts into the good. Like how Romano is mean and yells a lot, but his pasta never disappoints and when Italy is sad, Romano cries with him. Or like how England is super scary and has huge eyebrows and his food tastes like crap, but when Italy mentions fairies or unicorns or football, he can be pretty amiable, and that little waiter outfit is _so_ snazzy.

But with Germany, it's different. He always thinks of the good things first. He thinks of how even though she tells him time and time again not to come into her house in the middle of the night, she still leaves one window unlocked for him to crawl through, knowing he'll have lost his spare key (again and again and probably again). And that cute color she turns when she wakes up and he's there; how she always thinks that he's asleep when she stirs and stares and begins to blush before squirming out of his arms in the most unobtrusive way possible. And the way that she still ties his shoes and makes him spätzle and gives him hugs and (sometimes) lets him take her on dates (even though he has the sneaking suspicion that she doesn't _know_ they're dates). And how even though her palms and fingertips are rough and calloused from all her hard work, the backs are as smooth as fresh gelato. Her fingers are so long and pretty that he has no problem believing that Mozart was hers after all.

Italy really loves Germany.

However.

She is stern and firm and she always asks so much of him. She makes him get up way too early to train and he always has to wear pants in her house, even to sleep (which is just crazytown, if you ask him), and she yells when he takes important breaks. Cats and naps and gelato are important, no matter what Germany says. She always ties her pretty hair up in a bun that makes her look like a librarian, and her underwear isn't sexy at all; Prussia was kind enough to direct Italy to the drawer, but mean enough to point out just how sad his sister's style is. And she isn't receptive to change at all; when Italy bought her new, super sexy lingerie straight from France, she got all angry and red and screamy and started hitting him a lot.

There's lots about Germany that Italy thinks could probably change.

But Germany has one _especially_ redeeming quality that makes up for her strictness, as far as Italy is concerned: She's got the most gorgeous lips he's ever known. They're not full or red or pouty; in fact, they hold no conventional sex appeal. Yet, they are perfect.

They are fairly thin, somewhat pale; the pink of a wine blush two glasses in. She doesn't use lipstick or gloss because, really, this is _Germany_. But she does import that beeswax stuff from America she's so fond of, and Italy doesn't mind at all, because it makes them taste all minty and tingly, and they get that gentle shine to their pinkness that makes it look like she's been licking them, and sometimes she _has_, and then it's just too much for Italy to handle and he just _has_ to kiss her.

He thinks that maybe she still chalks all of his hugs and kisses up to him being Italian, because she doesn't react particularly well to his advances, and that's just sad, because when she's particularly engrossed in a book and she's got those cute glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose and her hair's in a loose ponytail, still damp from the shower and crawling over her mostly bare shoulder, and her pretty white teeth fold over her perfect lower lip as she turns the page, he wants her to realize just how much he wants her _really bad_.

She's so smart, so why can't she get _that_?

But since she doesn't see past Italy's advances for what they really are, he takes it to mean that she's just not ready, and he probably needs to wait.

It's either that, or maybe Italy's just not handsome enough for her, which is a really difficult concept for him to grasp; every other pretty woman he's come across has told Italy just how cute he is. It's always been easy for him to sweet talk ladies onto dates, and he's never been rejected when he invites them into his bed, but Germany is different. Germany doesn't pout her lips and bat her eyelashes (long and thick, but deceptively hidden for their paleness) when he looks her way, and she doesn't use anything to make her face up, except when she goes to meetings and covers up the dark circles beneath her eyes. But she doesn't _need_ to paint any blush across her honest cheeks, and if he thinks about it, any makeup around her eyes would draw attention away from their pure, crystal blue.

If he looks at her for too long, she becomes too pretty too quickly, and then she notices that he's looking and blushing and then _she_ blushes, and how can he possibly unleash the finer arts of seduction when they're too flustered to even avoid each other's eyes?

Maybe, his heart begins to doubt, he really isn't enough for her? Other ladies think he's attractive, but Germany has proved time and time again that she is very much _not_ "other ladies". After all, Italy is pretty scrawny, and he's pretty sure that Germany's arms are almost thicker than his in muscle, and his tummy is kind of soft from all the pasta and gelato, while hers is lightly defined by hard work and effort. She's probably seen lots of naked Prussia, and if Italy can't compare to her brother, how could he even think to stand a chance?

And all the blushing? It doesn't necessarily mean anything. She blushes super easily. He's been glued to her side for decades; he knows. She blushes when she's embarrassed with herself, when she realizes her mistakes. Her cheeks burn brilliantly when Prussia recalls events of her past that he finds oh so adorable. She is red from the tips of her ears to her shoulders when people slap her on the back in amusement for her drunken performances – the ones where she's had one too many of her own products, hears a good song, and stands up on the barstool to sing along in a fashion that is somewhat off-beat, but always perfect pitch (and promptly falls off after into someone's lucky arms). Even when she receives the attention she specifically calls for in world meetings does the attractive shade of red crawl up her neck.

It's something about how self-conscious she is among her peers, how she understands perfectly well that she has a place among them, and that she is neither the strongest nor the most influential. It is perhaps the only truly docile part about her (aside from her love of baking and chronic OCD when it comes to messes).

Italy's roots are firmly embedded in the belief that women are the best homemakers, are most favorable when they are sweet and kind and gentle. Italy thinks that's why he is so turned on when Germany commands her troops with _that_ voice and _those_ eyes; because he knows very intimately the side of Germany that is kind and selectively sweet and, in her own way, gentle. But the tone in her voice that suggests she can move mountains and defy the ocean tide that contradicts the humility and simplicity that she is molded of makes him burn in the most delicious of ways.

It's because of all these things that Italy considers that maybe all of her imperfections are what make her so perfect, too perfect for him.

So he thinks. But even in thinking so, he still crawls through her window in the middle of the night, risking Switzerland's fury to sleep by her side, and wishes not for the first time that his land was nearer to hers. She is so used to his antics that she has fallen asleep with very obvious intent on the far left of the bed. Her reading glasses and a thick German book lie on the bedside table, and she is curled in that sweet fashion that she probably doesn't know she's capable of, her golden hair woven in an no-nonsense braid draped over her pillow. There is almost all the rest of the bed open just for him, and there it is; that inherent kindness she cannot quell. His heart is melting, and he doesn't even want to stop the goofy smile curving from cheek to cheek.

He crawls beneath the covers and snuggles up to her, molding himself about her differently than normal, more around than against, his arm curled around her firm hip instead of folded between them, tucking her head into the curve of his neck.

Maybe when she wakes up, he thinks, she will notice the difference. Maybe her blush will be deeper with meaning, and maybe she won't wriggle away.

And maybe one day when the shock wears off, she'll even hold him back.

He falls asleep with a hopeful heart (and an even more hopeful libido).

* * *

I'm so happy that my 200th fic is an Ita/fem!Ger. Crazy happy. I don't think I could be happier. (When I go back on a fic-deleting binge it won't be 200th anymore, tho'. Boo.)


End file.
